Red Teaming against the US

It is common practice in military strategy development to assign a group to act as a "Red Team" to research weaknesses and develop strategies in order to exploit them against the "Blue Team" in order to try to identify ways in which a real enemy might try to exploit our weaknesses against us. I am about to lay out how a government like ISIS/Iraq/Syria or North Korea or Iran might be able to bring our country to it's knees. This is nothing new to our government. We have known this weakness existed and how it might be exploited for some time. I will show how it can be achieved using the technology that we already know these nations have access to, and how we have failed to address this problem.

The Method:

Setting off one or more simple fission devices in suborbital or low earth orbital altitudes in order to destroy all electrical and electronic systems over very wide swaths of the CONUS, bringing power, transportation, food, medical and fuel delivery systems to a grinding halt. Within days starvation will set in as perishable foods rot, warehouses of food will be broken into and scavenged and will not be replaced, and sewer and sanitation breakdowns will trigger plagues of Typhoid, Cholera, Bubonic plague, and other diseases. Within weeks the population will begin to fall precipitously and the bodies of the dead will add to the already overwhelmed sanitation resources. Ironically simple fission devices are actually much more efficient at creating EMP than three stage Fission-Fusion-Fission devices are.

The Hardware:

  Both the US as well as the Soviet Union tested nuclear devices at high altitudes and accidentally discovered the effects of EMP are nothing to laugh at back in the early 60's. The US with project Starfish Prime, which set telephone wires hundreds of miles away in the Hawaiian Islands on fire. and the Soviet's similar experiences in Kazakhstan on Oct. 22 1962, with 184 K3 (Joe 157), a 300kt device. Since pure fission devices are much more efficient at producing prompt Gamma radiation which is the trigger for the E1 EMP pulse, large and complex three stage hydrogen bombs are not required. A device in the range of 10kt or less is more than adequate to produce a very large EMP pulse. Many people believe that the Taepodong-1 type IRBM's that North Korea have developed do not have enough payload to carry a weapon of any real size and therefore are not nuclear capable. This is a grave error.

   Many people feel that the first nuclear device that North Korea will field will be a "Trinity" type spherical implosion device, simply because that was the evolutionary path the western nations and the Soviets and Chinese followed. There is no reason to believe that North Korea's nuclear evolutionary path will be similar. After all, they already have access to the accumulated knowledge of those who have gone before. Further, they have access to Russian and Chinese Nuclear weapons designers as well. The United States developed a low yeild pure fission device that was small enough to be fired from a 155mm (and later a 130mm) artillery with yeilds of approximately 100 tons, Larger W-54 devices (approximately 10-1/2" O.D.) had variable yeilds up to 1kt and W-45 warheads which were about an inch larger in diamer and weighed about 150 lbs had yeilds up to 15kt. These devices are very inefficient as nuclear weapon designs go, and squander the very valuble plutonium used in the device, which is why they were retired, but they can fit in very small spaces and they are very simple devices. They do not require klystron type triggers or very timing critical spherical shaped implosion charges. Merely an ellipsoid of plutonium that is just subcritical, and two shaped charges on either end of the "egg" that when triggered at the same time drive the ellipsoid towards a spherical shape which then triggers a chain reaction. Use of tampers made from beryllium, tungsten, thorium, depleted uranium or HEU can easily increase yeild without increasing size to a huge degree. The US's most advanced warhead, the W-88 MIRV used in the Trident D-5, uses precisely this type of device as it's primary because of space constraints within the MIRV nosecone.   North Korea's first test device in 2006 was intended to be a 4kt yeild device, precisely the yeild range that is thought to be likely to be used in such an attack.  Seismic data indicates a very low yeild, but this is likely to be in error. North Korea likely used a trick developed by the US in the early 60's in Mississippi. Setting off a low yeild device in a large cavern with a lot of airspace around the device causes the sesmic signal to be "muffled" and look like a much smaller device than it actually was by a factor of 100. 

Therefore, the belief that North Korea's first device will be a crude device is frankly a bit arrogant on many advisor's part. There is absolutely no reason why North Korea could not leapfrog several evolutionary design steps ahead. After all, they already KNOW that such a device is possible, which our designers back then did not, and that is more than half the battle.

The Taepodong-1, if the third stage were to be fitted would be able to loft an estimated 50 kg (110 lbs) approximately 6000km (3728 miles) which is in the weight range of a W-45 warhead equivalent. The Taepodong-2, if they work the bugs out, could potentially loft a 1100lb payload  5600 miles which is more than enough to put such a device over the CONUS from mainland NK. But there is no reason to believe that NK would necessarily launch from the mainland. The missile could potentially be launched from a disguised freighter in the open ocean far outside the territorial waters of the US and still be able to put a nuclear device well above the visible horizon covering most of the eastern seaboard approximately over Minnesota, and another over Montana or Wyoming impacting the western coast, and potentially a third over approximately Kansas to impact the Gulf Coast.

This is how the opening salvo of WWIII is likely to be launched.

A new day dawns...

I have been away from this blog for quite some time. I admit to have becoming burned out and despondent and I was beginning to think this country was doomed to go the way of the Roman Empire, and it may yet be. But the results of yesterday's election has given me new hope. In the coming days I will be reactivating the blog and perhaps sprucing the place up with something other than black, which I had chosen in mourning for our republic.  Stay Tuned.

The swath of death widens, but the story just won't die.

Back in July 2008, I wrote a post about Larry Sinclair, Donald Young, Larry Bland, Nathaniel Spencer and their connection to Barack Obama. Since then, the story has both refused to die, as well as expanded. Wayne Madsen posted a story about Donald Young's mother's contention that Obama's organization murdered him. Now an eyewitness account of a gay sex encounter between Donald Young and Barack Obama has come to light, and conveniently, the woman who saw it has died under questionable circumstances. Now, the way I see it, there are at least two, possibly as many as four, people dead to try to bury this story, but the story just won't die. You know what they say: It isn't the original crime that gets you, it is the cover up, but in this case, it just might be both.

How we will trigger WWIII by refusing to fire a shot

The Obama admin is making a huge mistake in refusing to strike Iran's nuclear facilities in a limited conventional fashion. By refusing to do so ourselves with our conventional bunker busting weapons capabilities, we are forcing Israel to do so. And unfortunately Israel does not have the long range conventional capability to do so without sending it's pilots on a one-way suicide mission. Which forces Israel to contemplate Nuclear Weapons in order to get the job done. The political fallout (not to mention the nuclear fallout) that will result from an Israeli nuclear attack on Iran will probably result in an all-out war on Israel from all sides, one in which Israel's survival may well be in question. (At least not without the use of more nuclear arms on the combatants.) Do we really want to be the cause of WWIII?

About those Sex Harassment claims against Herman Cain...

Before everyone jumps all over him for being a perv, I would ask that you stop and think about the situation as a whole first. Sex harassment claims are very difficult to defend against. You usually have no documentation, and few if any unbiased witnesses, and you never know what kind of jury you'll draw either, so you are going into court with the deck stacked against you. Secondly, in these situations, the corporation is named in the lawsuit and therefore the corporations ins. co is in the driver's seat on any settlements. The accused might have to sign off on any settlement, but if you refuse, the ins. co will leave you holding the bag for whatever the jury might decide. So the pressure on the accused to sign on the dotted line is immense. Many women (and lawyers) have figured out that filing a bogus sex harassment claim is tantamount to winning the lottery, there is very little incentive not to. At worst, you are given just enough money to pay the plaintiff's lawyer, at best you retire a rich person. Who cares if nobody would ever hire you again? You're rich! THIS is a perfect example of why Loser Pays must be instituted nation wide, if you are going to make this kind of claim, you need to have some skin in the game.

Measuring the length of the Thread of the Fates.

In Ancient Greek Lore, Three Women who all shared a single eye, measured the length of each person's life by a thread which they cut when the life was to come to an end. In genetics, this is believed to be analogous to the lengths of a repeating "end of file" or EOF marker in computer parlance, at the end of your DNA called telomeres. The number of repeats dictates the length of our lives based on the fact that when cells replicate, the number of telomeres is reduced by one. So in theory, when the number of "EOF" markers reaches zero, then the replication fails resulting in DNA damage which either results in cell death (apoptosis) outright, or cancer/mutation which may or may not result in apoptosis, but will certainly lead to health effects on the body as a whole.

A company in the UK has developed a genetic test in which they compare the number of telomeres still in your DNA to your chronological age and try to extrapolate how long (approximately) you have to live based on this ratio. Now, this is certainly not proven to be accurate, but there is strong evidence that telomeres are a good guide to the longevity of an organism. Cancer cells and Stem cells replicate without reducing the telomere count and are by all accounts appear to be "immortal" for all practical purposes.

The company plans to make this test available to the public in the UK for the equivalent of about $700USD (at current exchange rates). Which begs the question: Is this a good idea? The test of course almost certainly has a fairly wide margin of error, and does not take into account a number of things that may shorten your life such as accident or poor diet/exercise. So someone could get information that they will live a relatively short life and decide there is no point in saving for retirement and blow all their money, or the reverse is true, someone who thinks they will live a long time saves every penny they have to live on when they get old, only to die in a car wreck five years later. What about the potential for depression/suicide? or someone embarking on risky behaviors in the belief they will die soon?

Adventures in Headline Writing Part 98704

Yet another headline that does not match the text of the article. I will however note that this is an AP article and the headline MAY be theirs.... And this is a screenshot just in case the article falls down the memory hole as errors are wont to do at 801 Texas Ave....

Adventures in headline writing part 98703

Today on the Chronicle website we find the following (note the red rectangle):



But the story that it links to says something 180 degrees opposite....



(click on images to enlarge)

Air France Flight 447: A Prediction/Postmortem (updated)

A couple weeks ago, searchers from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute (WHOI)finally discovered the debris field from Air France Flight 447 which went down in severe thunderstorms in the South Atlantic on a flight between Rio and Paris in 2009. The aircraft was an Airbus A330. They've found the tail section mostly intact and the possibility that the flight data recorders may be recovered has increased significantly, although they are below their rated crush depth. They may or may not be readable at this point. I'm going to presume for a moment that they are readable and I am going to predict what I think the data will show.

But first some background information.

The Airbus 3XX series has had a rather bumpy safety history. There have been two documented instances where the rudder has broken clean off the aircraft due to excessive loading, either from turbulence or from excessive rudder engagement at high speeds or a combination of the two. All of the A3XX series share a similar rudder design. When the problem was finally identified, instead of strengthening the rudder or it's attachment point, EADS chose to install a "software fix". They inserted a rule into the flight control software (remember all but the A310 are "fly-by-wire aircraft" meaning that the computer is in ultimate control of the aircraft, not the pilot. Remember this because it will play an important role in my prediction.) that limits the amount of rudder control surface movement the pilot is allowed to command depending on the speed of the aircraft.

All of the A3XX series (except the 310)utilize a flight control computer to control the aircraft because they are designed to be aerodynamically unstable and cannot be controlled by a human. This allows the control surfaces to be much smaller limiting drag and the associated fuel consumption. A very small control surface change results in a very large change in the aircraft's attitude. The A310 is aerodynamically stable, but just barely. Since the control surfaces need not be large to control the aircraft, they are structurally weaker (and lighter) than a similarly sized aerodynamically stable aircraft's are. But this also means that when the control surfaces are buffeted by extreme turbulence, they may fail regardless of the control surface movement or speed of the aircraft at force levels lower than those of other aircraft.

The design philosophy of the Fly-By-Wire system is also different from that of Boeing designs. EADS programmed the aircraft controls to only perform the maneuvers that the computer, taking all of the design loads of the structures involved into account, decides the aircraft can do safely. But when equipment is designed, the design load is usually several times smaller than the calculated load at failure. This difference is called safety margin which is often 4 or more times the design load. Further, structural materials are rated for their minimum strength, which they ALWAYS exceed in real life, so there are levels of safety piled upon more levels of safety so the maneuver could be much more aggressive than the system would allow and still be completed safely. But the Airbus system will not perform it regardless of the actual safety margin available, taking that decision away from the pilot. The Boeing system is predicated on the notion that the Pilot, and not the aircraft, knows what is best for the situation at hand. The system will warn the pilot when he is departing from the safe operating envelope of the airframe but will continue to allow the maneuver up to the absolute bare minimum safety margin on the assumption that if the pilot is commanding such a radical maneuver the aircraft must be in imminent danger of collision/crash and the pilot is given every bit of control the airframe can muster in order to save the aircraft. As you can see, this is a significant difference in design philosophy. The pilot is deemed to need to be saved from himself at all times. Further, since the system assumes that the computer will actually be in control of the aircraft at all times, there is no feedback mechanism in the Airbus's flight controls. The pilot has a joystick which has no force-feedback so he cannot "feel" when he is approaching the flight rule design limits. The Boeing system makes the controls increasingly stiff as the aircraft is deemed to be departing the safe envelope and shakes them when the aircraft is approaching the "hard limits" or when the aircraft begins to stall as well as activating the stall warning horn. This philosophy of saving the pilot from himself breeds complacency by the pilots who do not practice emergency procedures as often because they believe that the computer will save them.

The flight control computer is supplied information about the air temp, humidity, density, airspeed, angle of attack, and altitude by three independent ADIRU's or Air Data Inertial Reference Units, one on each side of the aircraft as well as one in the tail. These are connected to Pitot Tubes which are used to calculate airspeed by comparing the outside barometric pressure to that of a tube bent at a right angle and aimed towards the front of the aircraft. The pressure difference is directly related to the velocity of the air passing around the pitot tube because it creates an area of high pressure in the the tube opening. One problem is that if due to atmospheric conditions, ice forms in either the static port or the pitot tube itself, then that pressure differential can be thrown off. to combat this, the pitot tubes are electrically heated. If the pitot tube were to ice up, the ADIRU would receive bad or no data about airspeed, and we all know about the concept of "garbage in garbage out". If the flight data computer gets bad data then the decisions it makes are just as bad. By supplying three independent systems it was believed that this limitation would be mitigated by redundancy, but since all three are designed identically, if conditions were such that one would fail, all three would likely fail. This is false redundancy and is the bane of control system designers everywhere. It protects against damage, but not against a common failure mode.

There were two manufacturers (now three) of Pitot tubes approved for use on the Airbus A330. One is built by a European company called Thales, the other by BF Goodrich in the US (they sold the tire side of the business to Michelin in 1988 but they still use the same name). Prior to the AF447 crash it was discovered that the revision A of the Thales unit would tend to ice up under the conditions similar to AF447's flight. An airworthiness directive was issued by EADS to all carriers to swap half of the model A units with model B units to prevent icing in the belief that the revision B would solve the issue. Air France, being a government owned carrier and immune to liability, chose to "slow roll" the changes. Further testing in the wake of AF447 revealed that the revision B units would also ice up just as easily. Therefore the only system that was actually reliable was BF Goodrich's. But Air France, being the arrogant European company that they are, chose to use only the Thales units, instead of switching to Goodrich ones, until it was determined that both revisions would fail. I do not know what further remedial changes have been made since that determination was made. I suspect either the Goodrich or the other manufacturer's units (I do not know who that is.) were swapped for at least half the units on each airframe.

One final bit of information you need to understand. At the altitude that the aircraft was flying at the time (40,000 ft., which is the maximum ceiling of the aircraft.) the margin between overspeed (in which the airflow over the wings becomes supersonic and the center of pressure (lift) moves rearward of the center of gravity of the airframe due to the resultant shock wave causing an extremely abrupt nose down and roll condition, known as "Mach tuck".) and stall (where the airflow over the wings is inadequate to create enough lift to keep the aircraft in the air, again causing an abrupt nose down condition), is only about 70 knots. This is the so called "Coffin Corner" of the flight envelope. The aircraft was flying through a line of thunderstorms that reached above 50,000 ft. and wind gusts/shear that likely exceeded 150 knots in multiple directions. The aircraft was able to walk that fine line of airspeed because of it's automated flight controls, at least until the control systems began getting bad ADIRU data.

The final telemetry from the aircraft indicated multiple ADIRU data failures and that the flight control computer had switched from it's normal automated control flight rules to manual override flight rules, which means the computer had given up trying to understand what was happening and dropped the problem in the pilot's lap, but that also removed the "software fix" concerning the rudder too.

Now for the prediction:

The aircraft, flying at the speed and altitude it was at at the time had a very narrow margin of error, was being buffeted by extremely strong winds from variable directions and could not maintain stable flight speed or attitude as a result. Because of the icing conditions, either the plane went into a stall or an overspeed condition, most likely an overspeed. The plane abruptly dived and rolled, and either the abrupt roll itself, or the excessive rudder movement by the pilot fighting to save the aircraft, or perhaps simply from extreme turbulence by itself, caused the rudder to shear off the airframe. (the rudder was found virtually intact, sheared off at it's base, floating only days after the crash). The flight should have been cancelled due to bad weather, but the aircrew chose to fly (or were required to fly, overruling their objections, by the carrier) despite knowing that the weather in flight would be very bad. The carrier should have been more proactive about keeping up with airworthiness directives but they were not. Airbus/EADS should have done more testing on the Thales units prior to specifying them instead of taking Thales' word that they were ok. Thales of course should have also tested their design better. EADS/Airbus should also recognized that their software fix for the rudder was at best a band-aid approach and that the rudder could experience excessive side loading from external factors, and that the "fix" only worked when the computer was getting good ADIRU data.

One final prediction: the french Government and EADS/Airbus will bury these findings and never admit that they were complicit in foisting off a fundamentally flawed airplane design on the world.

Update: Since the publish date of this, the Flight Data Recorders have both been recovered and it has been determined that they are readable despite being in the water below their design crush depth for two years. I will be honest and say that I was actually mildly surprised that the French Gov. admitted that the data was readable. I expected them to use the fact that they were below their crush depth for two years as an excuse to find no data. Now the question is whether they will admit to the flaws in the aircraft design or not. You might recall that they refused to admit to the design flaws of the Concorde fuel tanks and instead blamed Continental for the crash and fire instead of admitting that there was a design retrofit to address this problem that they refused to implement, AND that the airport operations at Charles De Gaul (Airbus's corporate headquarters) failed to properly sweep the runway to remove any potential FOD debris as is required for that aircraft prior to take off. They also refused to admit that the Airbus rudder design is too weak for the potential loading it could experience in flight. Will Realpolitik bury this crash investigation? We can only wait and see.